Shanghai will charge over 4,200 local medical facilities for treating medical waste and close down the facilities' own waste incinerators when the centralized medical waste disposal system starts to operate mid next year, the Shanghai Environment Protection Bureau announced Tuesday.

A fee schedule for treating the waste and regulations on how hospitals will be monitored will be announced at the end of this year, said Sun Jian, the bureau's deputy director.

"It (the fee) will very likely be set up according to the number of beds that hospitals provide for patients," Sun added.

Shanghai environmental Protection (Group) Company, which owns the new waste treatment center, will assume full responsibility for profits or losses while the local government won't provide financial aid.

"The center applies Germany technology and will be the largest of its kind in the country with a total handling capacity of 26,000 tons a year," said Jin Zhengji, the company's manager.

He said that he is quite confident about the future owing to the prompt steps that the government has taken to facilitate the project.

Medical waste refers to appliances used in operations and excised human organs which have been traditionally treated by each hospital and tend to create air pollution due to the unregulated and rough treatment.

When it is completed next year, the new hazardous wastes disposal center situated in northwest Jiading District will centralize the collection and recycling of all medical waste created across the city.

(eastday.com July 28, 2004)